Here’s a quick quiz for all you Plamegame experts: What actually are the Justice Department regulations regarding the appointment of “˜special’ prosecutors such as Patrick Fitzgerald?
Here’s a hint: DOJ’s own rules were ignored in December, 2003 by then Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey when (acting on behalf of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who recused himself owing to past ties with presidential adviser Karl Rove) Comey gave the special counsel job to his old pal Fitzgerald.
Still stumped? Okay, let me tell you. Federal rules (namely Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 600.3) require the appointment of a prosecutor “selected from outside the United States government.” As United States Attorney in Chicago – one of the Bush Administration’s top Justice representatives in the Midwest – Fitzgerald hardly qualifies.
Comey was obviously aware of what he was doing when he ignored the rules to appoint Fitzgerald. In fact, when asked by Fitzgerald for clarification, Comey wrote in February 2004 that his conferral to Fitzgerald of the title Special Counsel “should not be misunderstood to suggest that your position and authorities are defined and limited” by the relevant regulation.
Since that regulation stipulates that the ranks of federal prosecutors (like Fitzgerald) should be the last place to look for a special prosecutor, one must wonder: Why was Fitzgerald chosen? After all, the regulations were put in place, and prosecutors like Fitzgerald disqualified, so as to avoid any potential or perceived conflict of interest that might be created by having a member of any given presidential administration investigate that same administration.
Yet those rules were ignored by the Bush Justice Department, and the Bush Administration thus ended up with its own “˜inside’ man running the investigation. To date, that investigation has yielded only the minimum that would forestall a firestorm of criticism – the indictment of Scooter Libby on charges of covering up a crime that apparently never happened. No Karl Rove”¦no Dick Cheney”¦not even any answers to the most basic questions underlying the entire affair – who revealed Valerie Plame’s secret identity, and was that in itself a criminal act?
How convenient for everyone! After all, “the coverup worked,” as E. J. Dionne has pointed out: If Lewis Libby’s strategy of slowing the investigation down hadn’t been successful, “We would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005,” as Fitzgerald himself noted when announcing the indictments.
“Note the significance of the two dates,” Dionne says. “October 2004, before President Bush was reelected, and October 2005, after the president was reelected”¦
“As long as Bush still faced the voters, the White House wanted Americans to think that officials such as Libby, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney had nothing to do with the leak campaign to discredit its arch-critic on Iraq, former ambassador Joseph Wilson.”
Given the stakes, is it surprising that the rules were waived and a Justice Department insider put in charge of the inquiry? After all, when the disastrous independent counsel statute – which of course brought us the Clinton-era Starr Chamber – expired in 1999, the question of who should investigate high government officials was seemingly answered by federal regulations meant to ensure that a full and unhindered inquiry could be undertaken with no perceived conflict of interest. Comey’s decision to waive those rules, and instead appoint someone selected from inside the United States government, call into question Fitzgerald’s entire investigation.
Fitzgerald’s closemouthed spokesman Randall Samborn declined comment, and Department of Justice representatives failed to return my phone calls and emails.
Their reticence is understandable. Although he has been widely portrayed as a fightin’ Irish son of a New York doorman, or alternately a Jimmy Stewart-like, “Mr. Fitzgerald Goes to Washington” Everyman, the special counsel and his curious investigation interruptus can best be understood as an inside job. Rather than being a “priest of the law”¦neither Democrat nor Republican” (Maureen Dowd’s typically cute but wrongheaded Times Select description) Patrick Fitzgerald is nothing more – but nothing less – than a loyal foot soldier in the John Ashcroft/Alberto “Torturer” Gonzales Justice Department of the Bush/Cheney regime. And if that ain’t a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is”¦
